Gaming - Page 419

Respawn's new mystery game is reportedly a singleplayer action-adventure FPS...but it is not Titanfall 3.

Respawn is working on a third project alongside ongoing Apex Legends content and Jedi: Fallen Order 2. Our previous coverage indicates the game is in early incubation phases of development, and new reports from GamesBeat say the title will be a singleplayer-driven FPS with an emphasis on fluidity.

The news comes after Respawn creative director Mohammed Alavi left the studio. Alavi was leading the charge on the unannounced game and back in 2021 he described the team as a "small and compact group of specialists that have a lot more freedom to shape a new game".

Digital video game services made the bulk of the global games industry's revenues in 2020.

Game services have far eclipsed product sales as the market continually shifts to a lease-based subscriptions, live games, and engagement-driven business models. According to figures from analyst Joost Van Dreunen, services including the likes of Xbox Game Pass, PlayStation Plus, and free-to-play live titles made up 70% of 2020's global games industry earnings.

The worldwide games market generated $180 billion in 2020 due to stay-at-home measures. Services accounted for roughly $127 billion according to SuperJoost analysis, whereas products--game sales, accessories, etc.--made up $53 billion.

Renowned video games voice actor Troy Baker announces his support for NFTs, and fans aren't happy.

Troy Baker has voiced dozens of characters in gaming, film, and anime; if you've played a video game in the last 10 years there's a good chance he's been in it. Baker portrayed icons like Joel in The Last of Us and Higgs in Death Stranding, and even The Joker in a multitude of animated films.

Now the actor is embracing NFTs. In a controversial Twitter post, Baker says he is working with Voiceverse to make unique voice-based NFTs. "You can hate, or you can create," Baker wrote.

SEGA has filed multiple NFT-related trademarks on the Japan Patent Office, possibly indicating its plans to delve into the digital market.

SEGA has filed two new NFT trademarks on the JPO. One is for a SEGA Classics NFT Collection, which should feature pixellated 8- and 16-bit non-fungible tokens, and the other is simply entitled SEGA NFT. The trademarks were filed in late December 2021.

These developments come days after SEGA's new CEO Haruki Satomi said he would abandon NFT plans if it were "perceived as simple money-making."

ONEXPLAYER has just launched its new Mini gaming handheld, which packs an Intel 11th Gen Core "Tiger Lake" CPU -- in fact, the flagship low-power Tiger Lake CPU in the Core i7-1195G7 -- and Iris Xe graphics.

Inside of the ONEXPLAYER Mini is the Intel Core i7-1195G7 processor, based on the 10nm node and rocking a quad-core configuration with CPU clocks at base 2.9GHz, and boost up to 5.0GHz. Power-wise, we're looking at tweaks of between 12W and 28W, but ONEXPLAYER hasn't been up-front about the default power settings just yet.

On the GPU side of things, we have built-in Iris Xe graphics, with the updated Xe-LP architecture that has 96 Execution Units (EUs) enabled. The GPU itself is clocked up to 1.4GHz, while there's a 7-inch 1920x1200 display with 323 PPI and 100% of sRGB coverage. ONEXPLAYER packs in a huge 10,455mAh high-capacity, a fast-charging battery inside of the Mini gaming handheld.

Microsoft has officially retired Xbox One family console production, and the last-gen system will no longer be manufactured by the company.

All systems in the Xbox One console lineup--including the original Xbox One, Xbox One S, and Xbox One X systems--are no longer being produced and manufactured by Microsoft. The company actually stopped making Xbox One systems in 2020, and is instead exclusively producing its new Xbox Series duo.

"To focus on production of Xbox Series X / S, we stopped production for all Xbox One consoles by the end of 2020," Xbox console marketing exec Cindy told The Verge.

A new report from Games One reveals the top-paid gaming CEOs of 2020, and Bobby Kotick didn't top this list this time.

The latest report from Games One highlights total compensation from gaming's top CEOs, showing how much executives earned throughout the games industry's historical 2020 boon period. It's worth noting the figures herein include salary, bonuses, and overall share/stock compensation plans.

Playtika CEO Robert Antokol makes the top spot with over $372 million in compensation through 2020. Playtika is known for its billion-dollar casino and casual games and launched an IPO in January 2021 worth $469.3 million.

Halo Infinite's free-to-play multiplayer could get expanded storylines, new 343 Industries job listings indicate.

Back in June 2021, Halo creative head Joseph Staten said Halo Infinite's multiplayer would tell a story. That hasn't really happened just yet. Infinite's season 1 battle pass very lightly pays homage to the Heroes of Reach and there's no real narrative outside of a great-but-hollow season 1 cinematic. The F2P multiplayer is held together by chaotic action, not story beats. That could change soon.

343 Industries is currently hiring a Halo Infinite writing director that will oversee and help create "serial narrative content" for Infinite's free-to-play multiplayer.

Multiple video game market securities analysts predict Grand Theft Auto VI could release by 2024.

With the help of Zynga, Take-Two Interactive plans to deliver record bookings in FY2024. The company, which will soon merge with Zynga in a huge $12.7 billion deal, plans to achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 14% in the three-year period between FY21 and FY24. This implies $9 billion in net bookings for FY24. For perspective, it took Take-Two five years to hit its current 17% CAGR from FY17 to FY21.

It's believed that GTA 6 will be the main driver for these earnings, at least on Take-Two's part. Zynga's contributions will be from a litany of mobile titles. Two securities analysts have seemingly corroborated predictions that I made back in May 2021 surrounding GTA 6's release--the hugely anticipated Grand Theft Auto 6 could release by March 31, 2024.

God of War is now available on the PC after being a PlayStation exclusive for many years, and while that is being enjoyed by gamers across the world on the PC -- the very best version of the game -- God of War 3 has been tweaked, run at 8K with ray tracing, and more. Check it out:

YouTuber Giulio Guglielmi, aka MassiHancer, has tweaked the latest MassiHancer mod to work with RPCS3 settings (the PlayStation emulator) so that it can run 8K (7680x4320) more stable. He's using NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 3090 graphics card, a dedicated ReShade preset -- which includes Pascal Gilcher's Screen Space Ray Tracing Global Illumination shader.

The game looks good on its own, but man... at 16x the pixels of 1080p and 4x the pixels of 4K, I don't think God of War 3 could look any better at 8K. But when you add in the reflections that ray tracing provides, adding in Global Illumination, you've got God of War 3 looking, unlike anything the next-gen consoles could ever wish for.

The final season of Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone Pacific is upon us, with Activision-Blizzard unleashing Attack on Titan in a new collaboration with Call of Duty.

The first bundle, which is inspired by Captain Levi Ackerman, acts as the first major update to Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone Pacific of 2022. The new bundle will be released as part of the midseason update, adding Daniel Yatsu from Attack on Titan, in his iconic Survey Corps outfit.

Call of Duty: Vanguard and Warzone Pacific's midseason update arrives tomorrow, with the Attack on Titan-themed goods dropping on January 20. There's a new Operator, a new weapon, new content for Zombies, various bug fixes, and as usual, oh-so-much more.

Firesprite Games, which includes veterans from former WipEout developer Sony Liverpool, is currently working on the new free-to-play Twisted Metal reboot.

Sony's new Twisted Metal game was originally in development at Lucid Games, the UK-based studio behind Destruction AllStars, but the project's lead has been handed off to Firesprite Games, sources tell VGC. Firesprite was acquired by Sony in 2021 and is very close to Lucid Games--both are in Liverpool--and it's possible the two studios are co-developing the project.

Lucid Games' Matt Southern has also joined Firesprite; Southern worked on MotorStorm for Sony.

A full build of Horizon Forbidden West has leaked early onto the internet--beware of spoilers!

Horizon Forbidden West has repeatedly been leaked out into the wild, sources tell Video Game Chronicle. The build is apparently an early version that's essentially content complete with all of the core gameplay features and mechanics intact, but isn't entirely finalized and is missing art assets and the like. This may make it easier for Guerrilla Games and Sony to track down.

Sony has responded to the leaks as any billion-dollar company protecting its IPs would: By issuing DMCA takedowns and strikes across social media. The leaked images have been scrubbed from Twitter, Imgur, and even 4Chan is feeling the pressure.

Sony will continue manufacturing PlayStation 4 consoles to help buoy sales and offset dwindling PlayStation 5 supply.

Sony originally planned to halt PS4 production in 2022. Due to chip shortages and restricted PS5 supply, Sony is keeping the aging PS4 alive for another year. Bloomberg reports that Sony will produce 1 million PS4s in 2022, presumably in calendar year, to help counter lower-than-expected hardware sales.

PS4 sales have dried up considerably over the past few quarters. In Q2'21, Sony shipped a paltry 200,000 PS4s, a figure representing a 87% decrease from the 1.5 million PS4s it shipped in Q2'20. Through FY21, Sony has shipped just 700,000 PS4 consoles to retailers as opposed to the 3.4 million PS4s it shipped in the same period a year ago.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is the first major game delay of 2022, developer GSC Game World announced.

Upcoming horror FPS S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has been delayed for 7 months and will now launch on December 8, 2022 on Xbox Series X and PC. This is the first major AAA delay made in 2022 and probably won't be the last, but it was made for good reason: The developers say they want more time to polish and test the game.

The news was made shortly after the developers reversed a particularly disastrous PR campaign centered around NFTs. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 team originally planned to launch its own metaverse complete with cryptographically-signed NFTs.

Take-Two Interactive hopes to have its mobile games running on Zynga's powerful ad tech platform 12 months after its combine deal closes.

Take-Two plans to buy Zynga shares in a massive $12.7 billion deal that has the two behemoths combining their efforts. The deal, which is so complimentary that Take-Two CFO Lainie Goldstein described it as a "hand in glove fit," would give the GTA publisher a powerful foothold in the growing billion-dollar mobile games industry.

One of the biggest opportunities for Take-Two is surging recurring consumer spending revenues thanks to Zynga's in-house ad platform. Zynga monetizes its games in two ways: with microtransactions and in-game ads. The ad platform is already established, and Take-Two hopes to bring its own mobile games Dragon City, Monster Legends, Top Eleven, Two Dots, and WWE SuperCard to the platform within 1 year after the deal closes. TTWO expects the Zynga combine will close in Q1 FY23 (by June 2022), so these games could be running on Zynga's ad platform by June 2023.

As Halo Infinite sales continue hitting top spots among key marketplaces, we take a look at historical franchise sales for more context.

Unlike previous Halo games, Halo Infinite is insulated against low sales. The free-to-play multiplayer offers a way to make long-term revenues without a $60 pay gate. Despite this free access point, Halo Infinite's premium campaign looks to be selling decently.

Infinite is the #3 best-seller on Amazon, is the 18th best-selling game on the PC Microsoft Store, and has sold an estimated 800,000+ copies on Steam (based on Game Discover Co. Simon Carless' conversions, Halo Infinite's campaign could've sold anywhere from 500,083 - 833,472 units in 2021). Halo Infinite's campaign is also the 15th top paid game on Xbox.

Microsoft's dual-console plan with the Xbox Series generation has paid off, culminating in the most quickest-selling Xbox console hardware gen of all time.

Xbox boss Phil Spencer recently re-confirmed the Xbox Series X/S duo is the fastest-selling Xbox consoles of all time. This isn't a surprise--Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella first confirmed the news way back in July 2021 during a Q4 call, saying: "Xbox Series S and X are our fastest-selling consoles ever, with more consoles sold life-to-date than any previous generation."

Six months later, that fact remains true. The Series X and S models are selling extremely well due to astronomically high demand (driven by scalpers and genuine desire from consumers alike). "At this point [we have] sold more of this generation of Xboxes, which is Xbox Series X and S, than we had any previous version of Xboxes," Spencer said in a recent New York Times column.

343 Industries plans to fix some of Halo Infinite's biggest issues with a February patch.

In a long-winded post on the Halo forums, Halo community director Ske7ch confirms 343i is back from their holiday break and ready to start fixing Halo Infinite's myriad of issues. The first major fix will be Big Team Battle, which Ske7ch says is playable in its current state (our data shows an 80% failure rate), but a big BTB patch is currently in testing and certification process. There's no ETA on the BTB patch, however.

Another big patch is coming mid-February that will address cheaters and other unspecific problems. Ske7ch says 343i is "actively triaging" to determine what issues are the most important to fix and plans to "get as much as we can" into the February update. The goal is to fix things without breaking others...however that might be impossible due to how Halo Infinite has been developed.

LEGO is the latest company to re-evaluate its partnership with Activision-Blizzard in wake of the ongoing abuse scandals.

LEGO announces that it is contemplating its relationship with Activision and has delayed the release of a new Overwatch-themed LEGO product (the Overwatch 2 Titan) as a result. It's entirely possible LEGO could cut ties with the game developer entirely and cancel future sets--it's also worth noting the Overwatch sets are currently sold out on the LEGO website.

"We are currently reviewing our partnership with Activision Blizzard, given concerns about the progress being made to address continuing allegations regarding workplace culture, especially the treatment of female colleagues and creating a diverse and inclusive environment," LEGO said in a statement spotted by The Brick Fan.